I'm the digital strategy editor at GreenBiz and a freelance reporter covering a broad range of technologies, including cleantech, automotive tech, mobile devices and more. I'm especially interested in how technology intersects with humans, influencing consumers and culture. My stories have appeared in The New York Times blogs, Fast Company, MIT's Technology Review, The Christian Science Monitor, GreenBiz, GigaOM, VentureBeat and many other publications.

GE's Latest LED Acquisition: Albeo Technologies

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Then, as Bisberg puts it, the future whispered. In 2006 and 2007, Albeo got two calls that indicated untapped potential in the industrial market. An owner-occupied skyscraper in New York had modified some residences into an industrial space and wanted hundreds of LEDs by the end of the month. And a government agency wanted to outfit an aircraft carrier entirely with LEDs. Albeo couldn’t provide these lights on time; it didn’t even have UL certification for them. But it saw these calls as hints about where the future was going and it heeded the call: In 2007, Albeo shifted from the residential market to the industrial market, which it thought would place a higher value on lower maintenance costs. By then, LED technology had improved so rapidly that Albeo could make practical fixtures suitable for the industrial market.

As the smallest of the lighting markets, the industrial market attracted much less competition. “By choosing a market that’s somewhat under the radar, we got to a position that’s more competitive,” Bisberg explained. “We were able to get further along with less competition to grow quicker, and I think that’s the key for a small company to be able to get up to critical mass. Over our first six or seven years, we put in our base level structure and put critical procedures in place and now we can compete with anybody.”

Aside from energy savings, reduced maintenance costs have proved an effective selling point. For example, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station switched to LEDs because of the lower maintenance, not because of the energy efficiency. After all, energy in a nuclear power plant is cheap and available, but maintenance is not. Plant managers decided they would rather use their maintenance people for more valuable tasks than changing light bulbs, Bisberg said.

Maintenance comes at a premium in data centers, pharmaceutical factories, cold storage facilities, grocery stores, convention centers, military bases, schools and, of course, power plants, he added. And now, Albeo also is expanding into the commercial market, where Bisberg estimates that 12 billion square feet of U.S. office space could yield a potential market of $24-$36 billion.

The industry still faces some risks and challenges, of course. For one thing, it has benefitted from utility rebates and highelectricity prices, and could be at risk if the prices or rebates drop too quickly too soon. Albeo also faces competition from traditional light-fixture companies, as well as from other LED startups.

(Interestingly, when I asked Bisberg about competing with larger companies back in September, he said, “we tend to move quicker than they do, with new versions, models and performance points.”)

Albeo’s working on new improvements to cut costs: It has developed lab prototypes that integrate both LED chips and circuit boards into the fixtures, eliminating the need for a separate diode and circuit board. Bisberg also expects to see “a slight glut” of LED chips in the marketplace in the future, which should further lower costs. LEDs will become less expensive – while remaining more efficient – than fluorescents in two to five years, he predicts. “At that point, it’s a no brainer,” he said.